ARRL General Bulletin ARLB082 (1995)

SB QST @ ARL $ARLB082
ARLB082 FCC proposes closings
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ARRL Bulletin 82 ARLB082
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT August 18, 1995
To all radio amateurs
SB QST ARL ARLB082
ARLB082 FCC proposes closings
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt has proposed
actions to save money, including personnel reductions and facility
closings.
Hundt said that although the FCC currently has fewer than its
authorized personnel ceiling of 2,271, steps would be taken to
reduce the number of FCC employees to about 2,050. In addition to
retirements and buyouts, the closing of some regional and field
offices would result in about 120 jobs lost, of which some 50 would
be involuntary. Hundt said these 50 ''reductions in force,'' or RIFs,
would be the first in FCC history.
Regional offices would be closed in Atlanta, Boston, and Seattle,
leaving their functions to regional offices in Chicago, Kansas City,
and San Francisco.
The following field offices would be closed (leaving 16 still open):
Buffalo, Miami, St Paul, Norfolk (Virginia), Portland (Oregon),
Houston, San Juan, Anchorage and Honolulu.
All nine monitoring stations would be closed, as well as monitoring
operations within four FCC field offices. ''Fortunately,'' Hundt
said, ''technological advances will permit us to replace these
monitoring stations with a national automated monitoring network by
the summer of 1996.''
These nine monitoring stations are at Vero Beach, Florida; Belfast,
Maine; Allegan, Michigan; Douglas, Arizona; Livermore, California;
Ferndale, Washington; Grand Island, Nebraska; Kingsville, Texas; and
Powder Springs, Georgia.
Hundt said ''No monitoring function will be impaired.'' One facility,
in Laurel/Columbia, Maryland, would be the central site for
''electronic monitoring.''
If approved by the full Commission, the monitoring stations and
field offices would close by July 1996. No timetable was given for
closing of the four regional offices.
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